Reveal and Giveaway! (TWO fat quarter bundles!)

UPDATE:
Thank you for your interest....this giveaway is now closed.

I know that I've been AWOL for a few days, and I do apologize to all of you --- it really is inexcusable that I've left you without a word, and I'm really quite contrite. I actually have a good excuse, well, I have eight of them . . . they've taken more of my time than I realized.  See?

I'm getting back to my sewing, though, so I hope my apology is accepted?  I saw a few nods -- I'll go with that. No use flogging myself any further. Here, will you take this wet noodle and toss it?

(Grinding noise)  Changing gears, now, would you like to see the Christmas project reveal? Oh, good, I was hoping that at least one of you would say yes!!  Here is my new Christmas wall-hanging!!

(Sigh. I tried several times to get a picture to upload here, but I'll try again later . . .)

It's made from Jacquelynne Steves' (The Noble Wife blog and web store) new fabric line (and it is in the stores now!) called "Oh Holy Night" --- these are dreamy fabrics in luscious colors from Jacquelynne's palette. 

(Waving) Thank you, Jacquelynne! I enjoy her fabrics and projects so much -- she shows lovely things on her blog, and I routinely drool over the fabrics and kits in her store! Check out these pretty prints and solids:

The panel is adorable --- think of your elementary school Christmas pageant, with all of the kids and the animals helping out!

When I was trying to decide what I would design with this line, I kept coming back to this panel. To me, this is the heart of Christmas, and I was loving all the mousies and squirrels hanging up their ornament balls and stars around the edge of the panel. I wanted to showcase the gorgeous fabrics, so I decided to make "ornaments" from them and have them wind their way around the scene . . . then, you know me; the 3D bug bit me again - but I'll show you that later! (Wink)

After cutting strips of the light green, I cut out circles of the others, approximately three inches in diameter.

I fussy cut some strips from her striped fabric:

See there?

 . . . and made tubes from them -- I have these cool plastic tools from Clover so that I can press the seams where I want them, like so:

 and then use the tubes for stems for flowers --- or garland for balls!

Once the garland was stitched down, it was time to blanket-stitch the balls onto the garland:

Love those colors!

This is the point at which my camera died, so I won't be showing you the details on the stitching, etc!

I've got the balls on the garland, and assembled the body of the wall-hanging. Remember the 3D part of the project that I mentioned? Well, each ornament needs something that attaches it to the garland, so each one will receive a red ribbon bow. Then, there will be holly leaves, cut from the lovely green print from the line.

I found a great tutorial on "quickie" 3D leaves, at this link. I'm going to be making those and tacking a couple at each ribbon!

Oh, and I forgot to show you --- I gave one of the mousies a cameo role on an ornament --- I fussy cut an oval with him in it, and another oval of the red print; I put it all together with my trusty Lapel Stick and here he is:

Sorry about the picture quality --- that's my seven-dollar-wonder-with-no-flash! I'll pause for a moment to allow you time to ooooh and aaaah about my serious bargain hunting . . . (Grin)  It will do just fine on outdoor shots of quilties and projects until I get something better!  (That mousie was the one indoor shot that I tried.)

Now, whilst I am working on putting my 3 dimensional touches on my project, I think we should have something fun for you Lilypadquilters.  Hmmmmm, what can we do?

I know!  A giveaway!!

Jacquelynne is providing not one, but TWO fat quarter bundles of these gorgeous "Oh, Holy Night" Christmas fabrics for you Lilypadquilters to try to win!

I'm trying something new this time --- I hope you will let me know if you like this or not! I thought I'd see how the Rafflecopter thingie works . . . 
Now, you do NOT have to do everything listed here, OK? You can pick and choose --- you can do one, two, or however many you would like to! I tell you the truth; you will love these pretty fabrics!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I sure hope this works! Let the entries begin, and good luck! 

Love,

Are those jingle bells that I hear?

Well, I do declare, I believe those ARE jingle bells . . . Padsworth and I are happy to have a guest poster today, and we are declaring this to be a "Christmas prep" day, today!  After all, you want to be prepared for all the festivities, right? (Grin)

We saw a wonderful project on Belinda's blog, The Seam Rippers, and we asked her to put together a tutorial, for all of you wonderful Lilypadquilting peeps!  So, we'll turn it over to Belinda, and let her take it away!

Hello from Arkansas!! My name is Belinda and my daughter and I share a blog called The Seam Rippers. We do a bit of sewing, quilting, painting and the odd craft from time to time. When Snoodles first asked me to be a guest  on her blog, I was a little unsettled as I'm OK with doing things on my own blog, but on someone else's...not so much. She was very encouraging and so without further ado, here is my Christmas tutorial for July.

Embroidery Hoop Ornament

 

Gather your supplies listed below:

fabric

felt

embroidery hoop

ribbon

scissors

cording

hot glue and gun

pattern

puffy or slick paint

Optional supplies:

Acrylic paints and brush (you may want to paint your hoop red or green)

needle and embroidery thread (to outline your pattern or hand applique instead of hot glue)

embellishments of your choice (floral picks, buttons, studs, gems, etc.)

Cut a circle larger than the outside hoop and if desired, mark with a watercolor pencil or disappearing ink pen. Make sure your pattern fits inside the circle with plenty of space around it. I like to use children's coloring pages for pattern ideas, and sometimes I just free hand something.

Cut your designs out of felt or fabric of your choosing. I like the felt because it gives it a little more texture and doesn't fray.  We are doing a gingerbread man today.

Choose which embellishments you want and begin the fun stuff by hot gluing the cut out to the fabric in the center of the hoop. You can also stitch your design on, and this gives it a different style and dimension. 

Using puff or slick paint, create your man's features and let dry completely. To make the little heart, I put two round drops side by side, then take a straight pin and pull down from each one meeting in the middle underneath. You can see where I practiced on the paper.

Tie a loop in your cording, wrap around the screw at the top of the hoop and secure with hot glue. Then tie your ribbon around the screw and start adding your embellishments, hot gluing to keep them in place.

I finish it off by hot gluing rick-rack around the edge and covering the back with more fabric to give it a cleaner look. Just glue it on and trim.

The possibilities are endless and it's great fun to find new designs to try. This is a project that doesn't take much time or money and I hope you enjoyed learning about it!

Thanks for inviting me Snoodles!! Merry Christmas in July!!

Hi, It's Snoodles, back again! Aren't those adorable? I can see several of those in my future! Thanks ever so much, Belinda, for putting together a tutorial for us, and showing us how it's done! 

I hope y'all will leave her a comment and let her know if you liked her project -- and maybe take a quick hop over to her blog and say "howdy" over there!

We'll be back soon with more fun!

Love,

 

Merry Christmas to all of the Lilypadquilting community!

(Picture courtesy of Nichol, at A Desert Quilter blog) 

 

Just wanted to let all of you know that I'll be taking a "time out" from blogging for a few days . . . I have some gifties to finish, and some baking to do, and I also want to spend some quality time with my sweet family!

I'll be back soon, and I'll have some progress on my "Blossom" quilt, using the Butterscotch and Rose line --- I'll even show you on the OleFrogEyes wall, how it is coming along! I promise!

Till then, my wish for all of you, is a very merry Christmas, and a healthy and happy new year in 2012! And happy Hanukkah to all of you who started celebrating the Festival of Lights on Tuesday! (I'm looking forward to veggie latkes and challah in our meals today - Yum!)

Blessings and much love to all of you!

Love,

Christmas Quilt Show Begins Today!

Huzza! Today is the day we've been waiting for! (Well, some of us have, anyway!) The Christmas Quilt Show begins today at SewCalGal's blog . . .

Be sure to go by there and check it out! There are lots of fabulous prizes to be won, and lots of inspiring quilted projects to admire!

Here is my entry --- a hand-quilted tablerunner! I created this from a mix of Christmas and Mary Engelbreit fabrics, and created large nine-patch blocks. I set them on point, and then stitched some fancy stitching on the seams and edges. See?

It is quilted with swirls and stars in the black background areas, and then the holly leaves and berries at each end are appliqued. You can take a closer look, but don't be too judgemental --- this was one of my very first projects, so be gentle, OK?

I backed it with a green candy cane fabric, and brought it around to the front for the binding.  I wish that I'd had a brighter day to make my photos, but hope you can see it alright.


I hope you like my Christmas quilted tablerunner! Have fun checking out all of the other entries in the show!


Love,

Stockings for Kids!

Over at the Purple Panda Quilts blog, there's a drive on for stockings for foster kids, and I wanted to help. So I hauled out my Christmas fabrics and made a crazy quilt stocking!

I stitched all of the seams in a decorative stitch, for a real crazy quilt look:

If you would like to join the effort, be sure to check out the link to get all the instructions, and check out the flickr group, too! Here's a linkie for that!

It's sure to get you ho-ho-ho-ing in no time at all!

Love,